Parent-child communication1
PARENT-CHILD COMMUNICATIONS ABOUT CONSUMPTION AND ADVERTISING IN CHINA
Keywords: China – parent -- child – family communication – consumption -- advertising
Dr. Kara Chan*
Associate Professor
Department of Communication Studies
Hong Kong Baptist University
Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong
Tel: (852) 3411 7836 Fax: (852) 3411 7890
email:
Dr. James U McNeal
Visiting Professor
Guanghua School of Management
Peking University
Beijing, China 100871
email:
Paper accepted for publication in the Journal of Consumer Marketing
*Please send all correspondence to this author.
Acknowledgement: The work described in this paper was fully supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project No. HKBU2022/01H)
Running head: Parent-child communication
JCM_famcomm.doc
Not to be copied or quoted without expressed permission of the author.
PARENT-CHILD COMMUNICATIONS ABOUT CONSUMPTION AND ADVERTISING IN CHINA
Abstract
The current study examines how Mainland Chinese parents communicate with their children about consumption and advertising. A survey of 1,665 parents of children aged six to fourteen in Beijing, Nanjing and Chengdu was conducted in December 2001 to March 2002. Using Moore and Moschis’s (1981) typology of family communication patterns, Chinese parents are classified into four types including laissez-faire, protective, pluralistic, and consensual parents. Results indicated Chinese parents are classified primarily as consensual type with both high socio- as well as concept-oriented communication. Family communication patterns differ among parents of different demographic groups as well as among different dyad relationships. Parents with higher education level and families with higher household income engaged more frequently in concept-oriented communication. Pluralistic and consensual parents discussed with children about television commercials more often than laissez-faire and protective parents. Consensual parents perceived they have higher influence on children’s attitude toward advertising than laissez-faire parents. Implication for marketers and advertisers are discussed. (156 words)
PARENT-CHILD COMMUNICATIONS ABOUT CONSUMPTION AND ADVERTISING IN CHINA
INTRODUCTION
China adopted a Single-Child Policy in 1979 and it is the current rule in urban China (Zhang and Yang, 1992). Chinese children have a substantial amount of their own money and have great influence on the daily household purchases (McNeal and Yeh, 1997). There are 290 million children under the age of 14 in China (The State Statistical Bureau, 2000). It is estimated that in 1999, the approximately 60 million children, ages 4-12, in the largest cities of China spent around US$6.2 billion of their own money on their own wants, and influenced the spending by parents and grandparents of over US$61 billion, giving them a market potential of US$67 billion (McNeal, 2000). As a result, young consumers are the targets of many international and local advertisers. Parents play a major role in children’s consumer socialization (Ward et al., 1977). Moschis and Moore (1982) found that television advertising influences the development of materialism and a traditional view of sex-roles in those adolescents whose parents do not discuss consumption matters with their children. In other words, parental communication about consumption will neutralize the undesirable effect of advertising on children. Previous studies indicate that Chinese parents have a high level of mediation of children’s television viewing (Bin, 1996; Greenberg et al., 1991). Parents serve as gatekeepers and take control over children’s viewing time as well as viewing content. Therefore it is important that advertisers and marketers have an understanding of how Chinese parents communicate about consumption with children and how parents mediate children’s use of media and advertising. Effective marketing activities targeting children need to obtain the green light of the gatekeepers (their parents) before their television advertising messages can reach the children.
We collected 1,665 survey questionnaires from parents of children aged six to fourteen in three cities in China--Beijing, Nanjing, and Chengdu-- regarding the following research questions:
- How do Chinese parents’ communicate with children about consumption?
- How does culture influence the family communication patterns?
- Do family communication patterns vary with demographic variables of the parents and the children?
- Are family communication patterns related to parental mediation of television viewing?
Research literature indicates that family communication patterns are related to parental control of consumption and media usage (Carlson and Grossbart, 1988; Carlson et al., 1990). A cross-cultural study of American and Japanese mothers reflected that family communication patterns are culturally specific (Rose et al., 1998). As predicted by the difference in general patterns of parent-child interactions in the United States and Japan (Power et al., 1992), American mothers who emphasize independence and individualism more frequently engaged in concept-oriented communication. Japanese mothers who emphasize respect for authority and family harmony more frequently engaged in socio-oriented communication (Rose et al., 1998). Based on previous studies, we develop a theoretical framework to predict family communication patterns and parental mediation of children’s use of media and advertising (see below).
External variable:
Culture
Family communication pattern Parental mediation of TV viewing
Internal variables:
Demographics of parents
and children
We first review the literature about family communication patterns and the impact of culture on family communication. After discussing the hypotheses, we report the method and the results of this study. The implications and applications of the findings are discussed.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Family communication patterns
The process by which young people acquire skills, knowledge, and attitudes relevant to their functioning as consumers in the marketplace is defined as consumer socialization (Ward, 1974). Obviously, parents play an important role in children’s consumer socialization through parent-child communication, training, and modeling (Ward et al., 1977). Parental concern about children’s use of media reflects both personal and cultural differences in the perceived desirability of controlling outside influences on their children such as the mass media (Rose et al., 1998). Family communication patterns provide a way of assessing the interaction between parents, children, and their media and consumption environment. Previous research has related family communication patterns to parental styles (Carlson et al., 1992) and advertising practices (Carlson et al., 1990).
Family communication has been conceptualized to compose of two dimensions (see Moschis, 1987 for a review). The first dimension, socio-orientation, measures vertical or relationship-oriented patterns of communication. The emphasis is on parental control and children’s deference to authority. The second, concept-orientation, measures issue-oriented communication. The emphasis is on the establishment of an independent evaluation of an issue by the children. The two dimensions give rise to a four-category typology: laissez-faire, protective, pluralistic, and consensual (Figure 1). Laissez-faire parents are neither concept- nor socio-oriented. They seldom communicate with their children and hence have the least influence on their children’s consumption behaviors. Protective parents have high level of socio-oriented and low level of concept-oriented communication. They emphasize obedience and social harmony, and do not encourage children to develop independent preferences. Pluralistic parents have low level of socio-oriented and high level of concept-oriented communication. They maintain a relatively horizontal parent-child relationship and encourage children to express ideas. Finally, consensual parents have high level of both socio-oriented and concept-oriented communication. They encourage expression of ideas but at the same time maintain parental control.
[FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE]
Culture and family communication patterns
Empirical study indicates that there are cultural differences in family communication patterns. American mothers, as a group, emphasize independence and individualism more than Japanese mothers, which emphasize social harmony and respect for authority (Power et al., 1992; Itoh and Taylor, 1981). Rose et al. (1998) found that American mothers more often engaged in concept-oriented communication about consumption than Japanese mothers and Japanese mothers more frequently employed socio-oriented communication patterns. As a result, Japanese mothers were classified primarily as either laissez-faire or protective. American mothers were distributed relatively equally across the four groups.
When referring to Chinese perspectives towards parental styles, Confucianism is one Chinese ideology that has been widely investigated by Chinese and Western researchers. Some major concepts of Confucianism include: supreme moral person (Lei, 1993; Metzger, 1992); filial piety (Hsu, 1981; Kelly and Tseng, 1992); social harmony (Domino, 1992); collective decision making (Stander and Jensen, 1993); good manners, and the importance of education (Ekblad, 1986; Ho, 1989). The implications of all these studies suggests that Chinese parents tend to be more concerned about the moral behaviors of their children, and they will exert much control over their children’s behaviors. Chan’s (2001) study of Chinese children in Hong Kong reported that parents use television commercials to teach children about restrictive consumption behaviors (what products they should not buy) and desirable moral behaviors (such as protecting the environment). Mainland Chinese parents are unique in two ways. Firstly, they can only have one child in the family and they therefore have high expectations of their children. Secondly, the current generation of the singletons’ parents, men and women born in the late 1960s and 70s, have been defined by severe material shortages and by political suffering (Davis and Sensenbrenner, 2000). As the new era of economic reform has instituted a reward system based on formal education and qualifications, these parents want their lost past to be compensated for by a better future of their second generation (Bin, 1996). They were the lag-behinds in the consumer revolution in China introduced in the 1990s. A survey of 460 children in Beijing found that Chinese children consider television to be the most important information source to learn about new products, but not parents (McNeal and Ji, 1999).
In Greenberg et al.’s (1991) study of 529 grades 6 to grade 10 students in Beijing, 74 percent of young children said there were rules at home regarding how long they could watch TV. The most common forms of media mediation for television were familiarization with types of programs children watch and co-viewing with children. Parents of younger children were more likely to tell them not to watch certain programs and to recommend programs for them to watch. Children have reported that parents sometimes use television time as a potential reward or punishment. In a survey of 176 parents in Beijing and Jiaozhu, over 85 percent demonstrated control over viewing time as well as contents. The reported purpose of parental control over viewing time was to minimize the chance of children being distracted from study by television. One typical rule was that viewing was allowed only after children finished their homework. Most parents mentioned that they encouraged their children to watch intellectual and morally uplifting television programs while prohibiting children from viewing programs with love and sexual contents. This tight parental control reflects Chinese parents’ concern with the breakdown of conventional moral standards and norms under the challenge of an increasingly commercialized mass media culture (Bin, 1996).
Hofstede’s cultural dimension and development of hypotheses
Culture is the “collective mental programming” that distinguishes one society from another (Hofstede, 1983, p.76). Values -- judgments of good or bad, right or wrong -- are an important element of culture. In the past two decades, one of the major frameworks for understanding culture has been Hofstede’s (1980; 1983) typology of cultural dimensions. Hofstede’s (1980) original work mainly described four cultural dimensions: individualism/collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance and masculinity/femininity and later included long-term/short-term orientation (Hofstede, 1991).
Individualism/collectivism refers to a country’s cultural position with respect to the importance of the individual or the group. Power distance captures the desire within a society for hierarchy versus egalitarianism. Uncertainty avoidance is a society’s tolerance for ambiguity. While masculinity stands for a preference in society for achievement, heroism, assertiveness, and material success, femininity refers to a preference for relationships, modesty, caring for the weak, and the quality of life (Hofstede 1983; 1998). It seems that uncertainty avoidance and masculinity/femininity dimensions are not directly related to family communication patterns, therefore, the objective is to investigate if the difference in the power distance and the individualism/collectivism dimensions will differentially affect the family communication patterns.
Power distance refers to the extent to which less powerful members accept that power is distributed unequally (Hofstede, 1980). China has a long history of being an authoritarian society that emphasizes Confucius’s five cardinal relations between sovereign and minister, father and son, husband and wife, old and young, and friends (Yang, 1959). Chinese people have a strong respect for authority (Bond, 1991). In the traditional Chinese family, children should show absolute obedience to parents and should not express conflicting ideas openly. Americans on the other hand have low power distance. Therefore, we hypothesized that:
H1: Chinese parents will engage in a high level of socio-oriented communication.
As the current study is a single-country study, we are not able to compare the results with other cultures. We select the mid point of the 5-point scale to be the mean value for the null hypothesis. In other words, we hypothesized that the mean of social-oriented communication will be greater than 3.0.
The individualism dimension refers to the degree to which individual decision making and actions are encouraged by a society. In an individualistic society, everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion (Hofstede, 1980). Therefore, self-sufficiency and independence will be related with the individualism dimension. The implication in the family communication setting is that parents will treat children as individuals and are willing to involve them in family purchase decisions. However, collectivism deals with group ties and stress on social harmony. As Chinese parents put emphasis on collectivistic values, we hypothesized that:
H2: Chinese parents will engage in a low level of concept-oriented communication.
With a similar argument for the social-oriented communication, we hypothesized that the mean of concept-oriented communication will be lower than 3.0.
The combination of a higher level of socio-oriented and a lower level of concept-oriented family communication results in the following hypothesis:
H3: Chinese parents will more likely be classified as protective parents.
According to Rose et al.’s (1998) study, high levels of education were associated with concept-oriented patterns of communication. Thus, we hypothesized that:
H4: Parents with higher education level will more likely to be pluralistic and consensual parents.
Family communication patterns are related with parental mediation of television viewing (Moschis, 1985). Following Carlson et al.’s (1990) and Rose et al.’s (1998) arguments, we hypothesized that concept-oriented parents will be more likely to foster open discussion and encourage children to develop an independent perspective. We also hypothesized that socio-oriented parents will be more likely to restrict children’s access to outside influences. As the objective of socio-oriented family communication is for parents to gain control, we therefore expect that parents using socio-oriented communication will perceive that they have greater influence on their children’s attitude toward advertising. In other words, we hypothesized that:
H5: Consensual and pluralistic parents will be more likely to watch television with children than protective and laissez-faire parents.
H6: Consensual and pluralistic parents will be more likely to discuss with children about television commercials than protective and laissez-faire parents.
H7: Consensual and protective parents will be more likely to perceive that they have greater influence on children’s attitude toward advertising than laissez-faire and pluralistic parents.
H8: Consensual and protective parents will exercise more control over children’s television viewing than laissez-faire and pluralistic parents.
RESEARCH METHOD
The data analyzed in this study were collected from surveys conducted in three large cities in China – Beijing, Nanjing and Chengdu -- during the period December 2001 to March 2002. The study is basically a replication of Rose et al.’s (1998) study, but in a single-country setting. One of the authors translated the questionnaire from English to Chinese and a research assistant then back-translated it into English in order to enhance translated equivalence. The questionnaire was pretested in Beijing by personal interviewing eight parents about its clarity. The questionnaire then was revised and tested in Nanjing by personal interviewing another eight parents. The final questionnaires were distributed in six elementary schools to children in grade one to six who were instructed to take them home to either their parents for completion. Questionnaires were then returned to the schools. Altogether, 1700 questionnaires were collected (437 from Beijing, 525 from Nanjing, and 738 from Chengdu). Several questionnaires were not usable because most of the questions were left blank or checked with two or more answers, leaving a total of 1665 usable questionnaires. The sample profile is summarized in Table 1.
[TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE]
Measures
The questionnaire consisted of thirteen statements about family communication regarding consumption and four questions about parental mediation of children’s television viewing. The questionnaire closed by requesting various demographic information.
Family Communication Patterns. Two dimensions of family communication were examined. The first dimension, socio-orientation (Moschis et al., 1984), consisted of five items measuring the degree to which parents request children to conform to parental standards of consumption. The second dimension, concept-orientation, measured the extent to which parents encourage their children to develop their own consumption preferences. It consisted of five items from Moschis et al.’s (1984) concept-orientation scale and three items from Ward et al.’s (1977) family communication scale. Those scales had loaded on a single dimension in previous research (Carlson and Grossbart, 1988) and are conceptually similar. Both dimensions were measured on a 5-point scale (very seldom to very often). Inter-item reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) was 0.71 for socio-oriented communication and 0.66 for concept-oriented communication respectively. The means formed the measure of concept-oriented communication and social-oriented communication.